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A Child Who Passes Through Many Hands In Turn, Can Never Be Well Brought Up. At Every Change He Makes A Secret Comparison, Which Continually Tends To Lessen His Respect For Those Who Control Him, And With It Their Authority Over Him. If Once He Thinks There Are Grown-up People With No More Sense Than Children The Authority Of Age Is Destroyed And His Education Is Ruined.

-Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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A Child Who Passes

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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A Child Who Passes Through Many Hands In Turn, Can Never Be Well Brought Up. At Every Change He Makes A Secret Comparison, Which Continually Tends To Lessen His Respect For Those Who Control Him, And With It Their Authority Over Him. If Once He Thinks There Are Grown-up People With No More Sense Than Children The Authority Of Age Is Destroyed And His Education Is Ruined.

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He Who Blushes Is Already Guilty.

Ordinary Readers, Forgive My Paradoxes: One Must Make Them When One Reflects; And Whatever You May Say, I Prefer Being A Man With Paradoxes Than A Man With Prejudices.

Remorse Sleeps In The Atmosphere Of Prosperity.

Whoever Refuses To Obey The General Will Will Be Forced To Do So By The Entire Body; This Means Merely That He Will Be Forced To Be Free.

Our Affections As Well As Our Bodies Are In Perpetual Flux.

I Remembered The Way Out Suggested By A Great Princess When Told That The Peasants Had No Bread: "well, Let Them Eat Cake".

[when Anything Happens, We Interpret It As Good Or Bad, But...] We Do Not Know What Is Really Good Or Bad Fortune. [only The Future Can Decide. For Example, What Appears To Be Bad Today May In Fact Lead Us To A Greater Good Tomorrow And By The Very Act Of Thinking And Planning In That Positive Way, We Can Help Make That Good Future Come True.]

The Infant, On Opening His Eyes, Ought To See His Country, And To The Hour Of His Death Never Lose Sight Of It.

But Remain The Teacher Of The Young Teachers. Advise And Direct Us, And We Will Be Ready To Learn. I Will Have Need Of You As Long As I Live.

The World Is The Book Of Women. Whatever Knowledge They May Possess Is More Commonly Acquired By Observation Than By Reading.

Equality Is Deemed By Many A Mere Speculative Chimera, Which Can Never Be Reduced To Practice. But If The Abuse Is Inevitable, Does It Follow That We Ought Not To Try At Least To Mitigate It? It Is Precisely Because The Force Of Things Tends Always To Destroy Equality That The Force Of The Legislature Must Always Tend To Maintain It.

Universal Silence Is Taken To Imply The Consent Of The People.

Yes, If The Life And Death Of Socrates Are Those Of A Wise Man, The Life And Death Of Jesus Are Those Of A God.

A Man Who Is Not A Fool Can Rid Himself Of Every Folly Except Vanity.

Conscience Is The Voice Of The Soul, The Passions Are The Voice Of The Body. It Is Strange That These Voices Often Contradict Each Other?

Once You Teach People To Say What They Do Not Understand, It Is Easy Enough To Get Them To Say Anything You Like. V One Could Wish No Easier Death Than That Of Socrates, Calmly Discussing Philosophy With His Friends; One Could Fear Nothing Worse Than That Of Jesus, Dying In Torment, Among The Insults, The Mockery, The Curses Of The Whole Nation. In The Midst Of These Terrible Sufferings, Jesus Prays For His Cruel Murderers. Yes, If The Life And Death Of Socrates Are Those Of A Philosopher, The Life And Death Of Christ Are Those Of A God.

No One Is Happy Unless He Respects Himself.

It Has Always Pleased Me To Read While Eating If I Have No Companion; It Gives Me The Society I Lack. I Devour Alternately A Page And A Mouthful; It Is As Though My Book Were Dining With Me.

In A Well Governed State, There Are Few Punishments, Not Because There Are Many Pardons, But Because Criminals Are Rare; It Is When A State Is In Decay That The Multitude Of Crimes Is A Gaurantee Of Impunity.

Men Speak From Knowledge, Women From Imagination.

We Are Born Weak, We Need Strength; Helpless, We Need Aid; Foolish, We Need Reason. All That We Lack At Birth, All That We Need When We Come To Man's Estate, Is The Gift Of Education.

Every Artists Wants To Be Applauded

There Are Always Four Sides To A Story: Your Side, Their Side, The Truth And What Really Happened.

Temperance And Labor Are The Two Best Physicians Of Man; Labor Sharpens The Appetite, And Temperance Prevents From Indulging To Excess

Remorse Goes To Sleep During A Prosperous Period And Wakes Up In Adversity. [fr., Le Remords S'endort Durant Un Destin Prospere Et S'aigrit Dans L'adversite.]

There Are Times When I Am So Unlike Myself That I Might Be Taken For Someone Else Of An Entirely Opposite Character.

Days Of Absence, Sad And Dreary, Clothed In Sorrow's Dark Array, - Days Of Absence, I Am Weary; She I Love Is Far Away.

With Children Use Force; With Men Reason; Such Is The Natural Order Of Things. The Wise Man Requires No Law.

The Majesty Of The Scriptures Strikes Me With Admiration, As The Purity Of The Gospel Has Its Influence On My Heart.

Ruthless Man: You Begin By Slaying The Animal And Then You Devour It, As If To Slay It Twice. It Is Not Enough. You Turn Against The Dead Flesh, It Revolts You, It Must Be Transformed By Fire, Boiled And Roasted, Seasoned And Disguised With Drugs; You Must Have Butchers, Cooks, Turnspits, Men Who Will Rid The Murder Of Its Horrors, Who Will Dress The Dead Bodies So That The Taste Decieved By These Disguises Will Not Reject What Is Strange To It, And Will Feast On Corpses, The Very Sight Of Which Would Sicken You.

Love Childhood, Indulge Its Sports, Its Pleasures, Its Delightful Instincts. Who Has Not Sometimes Regretted That Age When Laughter Was Ever On The Lips, And When The Heart Was Ever At Peace?

In Any Case, Frequent Punishments Are A Sign Of Weakness Or Slackness In The Government. There Is No Man So Bad That He Cannot Be Made Good For Something. No Man Should Be Put To Death, Even As An Example, If He Can Be Left To Live Without Danger To Society.

No True Believer Could Be Intolerant Or A Persecutor. If I Were A Magistrate And The Law Carried The Death Penalty Against Atheists, I Would Begin By Sending To The Stake Whoever Denounced Another.

Plants Are Shaped By Cultivation And Men By Education. .. We Are Born Weak, We Need Strength; We Are Born Totally Unprovided, We Need Aid; We Are Born Stupid, We Need Judgment. Everything We Do Not Have At Our Birth And Which We Need When We Are Grown Is Given Us By Education.

Or, Rather, Let Us Be More Simple And Less Vain.

Our Greatest Misfortunes Come To Us From Ourselves.

All That Time Is Lost Which Might Be Better Employed.

Trust Your Heart Rather Than Your Head.

Trust Your Heart

Man Is Born Free And Everywhere He Is In Chains.

Great Men Never Make Bad Use Of Their Superiority. They See It And Feel It And Are Not Less Modest. The More They Have, The More They Know Their Own Deficiencies.

Girls Must Be Thwarted Early In Life.

British History

Every Man Having Been Born Free And Master Of Himself, No One Else May Under Any Pretext Whatever Subject Him Without His Consent. To Assert That The Son Of A Slave Is Born A Slave Is To Assert That He Is Not Born A Man.

Laws Are Always Useful To Those Who Possess And Vexatious To Those Who Have Nothing.

...in Respect Of Riches, No Citizen Shall Ever Be Wealthy Enough To Buy Another, And None Poor Enough To Be Forced To Sell Himself.

Abstaining So As Really To Enjoy, Is The Epicurism, The Very Perfection, Of Reason.

Christ Preaches Only Servitude And Dependence... True Christians Are Made To Be Slaves.

In Genoa, The Word, Libertas Can Be Read On The Front Of Prisons And On The Fetters Of Galley-slaves. The Application Of This Motto Is Fine And Just.

All Of My Misfortunes Come From Having Thought Too Well Of My Fellows.

We Can Never Put Ourselves In The Shoes Of Children; We Cannot Fathom Their Thoughts, We Lend Them Ours; And Always Following Ourown Reasoning, We Stuff Their Heads With Extravagance And Error.

Accent Is The Soul Of Language; It Gives To It Both Feeling And Truth.

There Is No Subjection So Perfect As That Which Keeps The Appearance Of Freedom.

It Is A Mania Shared By Philosophers Of All Ages To Deny What Exists And To Explain What Does Not Exist.

He Who Eats In Idleness That Which He Himself Has Not Earned, Steals It; And A Capitalist Whom The State Pays For Doing Nothing Differs Little In My Eyes From A Brigand, Who Lives At The Expense Of Passers-by.

Self-love Is An Instrument Useful But Dangerous; It Often Wounds The Hand Which Makes Use Of It, And Seldom Does Good Without Doing Harm.

Nothing Is Less In Our Power Than The Heart, And Far From Commanding We Are Forced To Obey It.

If, By Chance, Someone Among Those Men Of Extraordinary Talent Is Found Who Has Firmness Of Soul And Who Refuses To Yield To The Genius Of His Age And To Debase Himself With Childish Works, Woe Unto Him! He Will Die In Poverty And Oblivion.

Freedom Is The Power To Choose Our Own Chains

An Intelligent Being, Is The Active Principle Of All Things. One Must Have Renounced All Common Sense To Doubt It, And It Is A Waste Of Time To Try To Prove Such Self Evident Truth.

One Can Buy Anything With Money Except Morality.

In The North The First Words Are, Help Me; In The South, Love Me.

Definitions Would Be Good Things If We Did Not Use Words To Make Them.

Women Speak At An Earlier Age, More Easily, And More Agreeably Than Men; They Are Accused Also Of Speaking More; This Is As It Should Be, And I Willingly Change The Reproach Into A Eulogy.

I Will Say Little Of The Importance Of A Good Education; Nor Will I Stop To Prove That The Current One Is Bad. Countless Others Have Done So Before Me, And I Do Not Like To Fill A Book With Things Everybody Knows. I Will Note That For The Longest Time There Has Been Nothing But A Cry Against The Established Practice Without Anyone Taking It Upon Himself To Propose A Better One. The Literature And The Learning Of Our Age Tend Much More To Destruction Than To Edification.

Plant And Your Spouse Plants With You; Weed And You Weed Alone.

Teach Him To Live Rather Than To Avoid Death: Life Is Not Breath, But Action, The Use Of Our Senses, Our Mind, Our Faculties, Every Part Of Ourselves Which Makes Us Conscious Of Our Being. Life Consists Less In Length Of Days Than In The Keen Sense Of Living. A Man Maybe Buried At A Hundred And May Never Have Lived At All. He Would Have Fared Better Had He Died Young.

Virtue Is A State Of War, And To Live In It We Have Always To Combat With Ourselves.

Whence Do I Get My Rules Of Conduct? I Find Them In My Heart. Whatever I Feel To Be Good Is Good. Whatever I Feel To Be Evil Is Evil. Conscience Is The Best Of Casuists.

Jewish Authors Would Never Have Invented Either That Style Nor That Morality; And The Gospel Has Marks Of Truth So Great, So Striking, So Utterly Inimitable, That The Invention Of It Would Be More Astonishing Than The Hero.

Everything Made By Man May Be Destroyed By Man; There Are No Ineffaceable Characters Except Those Engraved By Nature; And Nature Makes Neither Princes Nor Rich Men Nor Great Lords.

In All The Ills That Befall Us, We Are More Concerned By The Intention Than The Result. A Tile That Falls Off A Roof May Injure Us More Seriously, But It Will Not Wound Us So Deeply As A Stone Thrown Deliberately By A Malevolent Hand. The Blow May Miss, But The Intention Always Strikes Home.

Provided A Man Is Not Mad, He Can Be Cured Of Every Folly But Vanity.

Falsehood Has An Infinity Of Combinations, But Truth Has Only One Mode Of Being.

I Say To Myself: "who Are You To Measure Infinite Power?

My Liveliest Delight Was In Having Conquered Myself.

Base Souls Have No Faith In Great Individuals.

It Is As If My Heart And My Brain Did Not Belong To The Same Person. Feelings Come Quicker Than Lightning And Fill My Soul, But They Bring Me No Illumination; They Burn Me And Dazzle Me.

For, As I Think I Have Said, I Can Only Meditate When I Am Walking. When I Stop I Cease To Think; My Mind Only Works With My Legs.

It Is Not Our Criminal Actions That Require Courage To Confess, But Those Which Are Ridiculous And Foolish.

God Made Me And Broke The Mold.

Force Does Not Constitute Right... Obedience Is Due Only To Legitimate Powers.

Innocence Is Ashamed Of Nothing.

The Man Is Best Served Who Has No Occasion To Put The Hands Of Others At The End Of His Own Arms.

I May Not Be Better Than Other People, But At Least I'm Different.

Everything We Do Not Have At Our Birth And Which We Need When We Are Grown Is Given To Us By Education.

Good Laws Lead To The Making Of Better Ones; Bad Ones Bring About Worse.

What Wisdom Can You Find That Is Greater Than Kindness?

Conscience Is The Voice Of The Soul, The Passions Are The Voice Of The Body. Is It Astonishing That Often These Two Languages Contradict Each Other, And Then To Which Must We Listen? Too Often Reason Deceives Us; We Have Only Too Much Acquired The Right Of Refusing To Listen To It; But Conscience Never Deceives Us; It Is The True Guide Of Man; It Is To Man What Instinct Is To The Body; Which Follows It, Obeys Nature, And Never Is Afraid Of Going Astray.

Teach By Doing Whenever You Can, And Only Fall Back Upon Words When Doing It Is Out Of The Question.

Leave Those Vain Moralists, My Friend, And Return To The Depth Of Your Soul: That Is Where You Will Always Rediscover The Source Of The Sacred Fire Which So Often Inflamed Us With Love Of The Sublime Virtues; That Is Where You Will See The Eternal Image Of True Beauty, The Contemplation Of Which Inspires Us With A Holy Enthusiasm.

To Abstain That We May Enjoy Is The Epicurianism Of Reason.

Not All The Subtilties Of Metaphysics Can Make Me Doubt A Moment Of The Immortality Of The Soul, And Of A Beneficent Providence. I Feel It, I Believe It, I Desire It, I Hope It, And Will Defend It To My Last Breath.

Living Is Not Breathing But Doing.

Do Not Judge, And You Will Never Be Mistaken.

The Most Absolute Authority Is That Which Penetrates Into A Man's Innermost Being And Concerns Itself No Less With His Will Than With His Actions.

Consolation Indiscreetly Pressed Upon Us, When We Are Suffering Undue Affliction, Only Serves To Increase Our Pain, And To Render Our Grief More Poignant.

The Want Of Occupation Is No Less The Plague Of Society Than Of Solitude.

O Love, If I Regret The Age When One Savors You, It Is Not For The Hour Of Pleasure, But For The One That Follows It.

There Is A Period In Life When We Go Backwards As We Advance.

I Do Not Know Is A Phrase Which Becomes Us.

No Man Has Any Natural Authority Over His Fellow Men.

The Falsification Of History Has Done More To Impede Human Development Than Any One Thing Known To Mankind.

Happiness: A Good Bank Account, A Good Cook, And A Good Digestion.

A Citizen Should Render To The State All The Services He Can As Soon As The Sovereign Demands Them.

All Through Life A Man Has Need Of A Counsellor And Guide.

The Strength Of The People Is Effective Only If It Is Concentrated; It Evaporates And Is Lost When It Is Dispersed, Just As Gunpowder Scattered On The Ground Ignites Only Grain By Grain.

That Which Renders Life Burdensome To Us Generally Arises From The Abuse Of It.

There Exists One Book, Which, To My Taste, Furnishes The Happiest Treatise Of Natural Education. What Then Is This Marvelous Book? Is It Aristotle? Is It Pliny, Is It Buffon? No-it Is Robinson Crusoe.

When My Reason Is Afloat, My Faith Cannot Long Remain In Suspense, And I Believe In God As Firmly As In Any Other Truth Whatever; In Short, A Thousand Motives Draw Me To The Consolatory Side, And Add The Weight Of Hope To The Equilibrium Of Reason.

Beware Of Listening To This Impostor; You Are Undone If You Once Forget That The Fruits Of The Earth Belong To Us All, And The Earth Itself To Nobody.

Absolute Silence Leads To Sadness. It Is The Image Of Death.

Liberty May Be Gained, But Can Never Be Recovered.

Frequent Punishments Are Always A Sign Of Weakness Or Laziness On The Part Of A Government.

The One Thing We Do Not Know Is The Limit Of The Knowable.

We Do Not Know Either Unalloyed Happiness Or Unmitigated Misfortune. Everything In This World Is A Tangled Yarn; We Taste Nothing In Its Purity; We Do Not Remain Two Moments In The Same State. Our Affections As Well As Bodies, Are In A Perpetual Flux.

Every Free Action Has Two Causes That Come Together To Produce It. One Is Moral, The Will That Determines The Act; The Other Is Physical, The Power That Executes The Will To Act.

People Who Know Little Are Usually Great Talkers, While Men Who Know Much Say Little. It Is Plain That An Ignorant Person Thinks Everything He Does Know Important, And He Tells It To Everybody. But A Well-educated Man Is Not So Ready To Display His Learning; He Would Have Too Much To Say, And He Sees That There Is Much More To Be Said, So He Holds His Peace.

What Good Would It Be To Possess The Whole Universe If One Were Its Only Survivor?

Men, In General, Are Not This Or That, They Are What They Are Made To Be.

Taste Is, So To Speak, The Microscope Of The Judgment.

Taste And Judgment

There Is No Folly Of Which A Man Who Is Not A Fool Cannot Get Rid Except Vanity; Of This Nothing Cures A Man Except Experience Of Its Bad Consequences, If Indeed Anything Can Cure It.

At Genoa, The Word Liberty May Be Read Over The Front Of The Prisons And On The Chains Of The Galley-slaves. This Application Of The Device Is Good And Just. It Is Indeed Only Malefactors Of All Estates Who Prevent The Citizen From Being Free. In The Country In Which All Such Men Were In The Galleys, The Most Perfect Liberty Would Be Enjoyed.

Two Things, Almost Incompatible, Are United In Me In A Manner Which I Am Unable To Understand: A Very Ardent Temperament, Lively And Tumultuous Passions, And, At The Same Time, Slowly Developed And Confused Ideas, Which Never Present Themselves Until It Is Too Late. One Might Say That My Heart And My Mind Do Not Belong To The Same Person.

To Renounce Liberty Is To Renounce Being A Man, To Surrender The Rights Of Humanity And Even Its Duties.

We Do Not Know What Really Good Or Bad Fortune Is.

The First Step Towards Vice Is To Shroud Innocent Actions In Mystery, And Whoever Likes To Conceal Something Sooner Or Later Has Reason To Conceal It.

Generally We Obtain Very Surely And Very Speedily What We Are Not Too Anxious To Obtain.

The English People Believes Itself To Be Free; It Is Gravely Mistaken; It Is Free Only During Election Of Members Of Parliament; As Soon As The Members Are Elected, The People Is Enslaved; It Is Nothing. In The Brief Moment Of Its Freedom, The English People Makes Such A Use Of That Freedom That It Deserves To Lose It.

Remorse Sleeps During Prosperity But Awakes Bitter Consciousness During Adversity.

We Are Born, So To Speak, Twice Over; Born Into Existence, And Born Into Life; Born A Human Being, And Born A Man.

From The First Moment Of Life, Men Ought To Begin Learning To Deserve To Live; And, As At The Instant Of Birth We Partake Of The Rights Of Citizenship, That Instant Ought To Be The Beginning Of The Exercise Of Our Duty.

I Bold It Impossible, That The Great Monarchies Of Europe Can Subsist Much Longer; They All Affect Magnificence And Splendor.

The Money You Have Gives You Freedom; The Money You Pursue Enslaves You.

The French Painter Rousseau Was Once Asked Why He Put A Naked Woman On A Red Sofa In The Middle Of His Jungle Pictures. He Answered, 'i Needed A Bit Of Red There.'

People In Their Natural State Are Basically Good. But This Natural Innocence,however, Is Corrupted By The Evils Of Society.

I Hate Books; They Only Teach Us To Talk About Things We Know Nothing About.

There Is A Period Of Life When We Go Back As We Advance. [fr., Il Est Un Terme De La Vie Au-dela Duquel En Retrograde En Avancant.]

Insults Are The Arguments Employed By Those Who Are In The Wrong.

Insult To Injury

The English People Think They Are Free; They Are Greatly Deceived; They Are Free Only During The Election Of Members Of Parliament.

Singing And Dancing Alone Will Not Advance One In The World. [fr., Qui Bien Chante Et Bien Danse Fait Un Metier Qui Peu Avance.]

Love, Known To The Person By Whom It Is Inspired, Becomes More Bearable.

Abstract Truth Is The Eye Of Reason.

Luxury Either Comes Of Riches Or Makes Them Necessary; It Corrupts At Once Rich And Poor, The Rich By Possession And The Poor By Covetousness.

Provided A Man Is Not Mad, He Can Be Cured Of Every Folly But Vanity; There Is No Cure For This But Experience, If Indeed There Is Any Cure For It At All.

She Was Dull, Unattractive, Couldn't Tell The Time, Count Money Or Tie Her Own Shoe Laces... But I Loved Her

The Political Body, Therefore, Is Also A Moral Being Which Has A Will; And This General Will, Which Tends Always To The Conservation And Well-being Of The Whole And Of Each Part Of It ... Is, For All Members Of The State ... The Rule Of What Is Just Or Unjust.

There Are Two Things To Be Considered With Regard To Any Scheme. In The First Place, Is It Good In Itself? In The Second, Can It Be Easily Put Into Practice?

Smell Is The Sense Of Memory And Desire.

The Man Who Meditates Is A Depraved Animal.

Take From The Philosopher The Pleasure Of Being Heard And His Desire For Knowledge Ceases.

The Freedom Of Mankind Does Not Lie In The Fact That Can Do What We Want, But That We Do Not Have To Do That Which We Do Not Want.

Nature Never Deceives Us; It Is We Who Deceive Ourselves.

Do You Not Know...that A Child Badly Taught Is Farther From Being Wise Than One Not Taught At All?

I Feel An Indescribable Ecstasy And Delirium In Melting, As It Were, Into The System Of Being, In Identifying Myself With The Whole Of Nature.

If Socrates Died Like A Philosopher, Jesus Christ Died Like A God.

Women, In General, Are Not Attracted To Art At All, Nor Knowledge, And Not At All To Genius.

To Write A Good Love Letter, You Ought To Begin Without Knowing What You Mean To Say, And To Finish Without Knowing What You Have Written.

Money Is The Seed Of Money, And The First Guinea Is Sometimes More Difficult To Acquire Than The Second Million.

Man Was Born Free, And He Is Everywhere In Chains. Those Who Think Themselves The Masters Of Others Are Indeed Greater Slaves Than They.

A Man Says What He Knows, A Woman Says What Will Please.

He Thinks Like A Philosopher, But Governs Like A King.

It Is Hard To Prevent Oneself From Believing What One So Keenly Desires, And Who Can Doubt That The Interest We Have In Admitting Or Denying The Reality Of The Judgement To Come Determines The Faith Of Most Men In Accordance With Their Hopes And Fears.

Anticipation And Hope Are Born Twins.

Our Passions Are The Chief Means Of Self-preservation; To Try To Destroy Them Is Therefore As Absurd As It Is Useless; This Would Be To Overcome Nature, To Reshape God's Handiwork. If God Bade Man Annihilate The Passions He Has Given Him, God Would Bid Him Be And Not Be; He Would Contradict Himself. He Has Never Given Such A Foolish Commandment, There Is Nothing Like It Written On The Heart Of Man, And What God Will Have A Man Do, He Does Not Leave To The Words Of Another Man. He Speaks Himself; His Words Are Written In The Secret Heart.

Nature Wants Children To Be Children Before Men... Childhood Has Its Own Seeing, Thinking And Feeling.

The Mechanism She Employs Is Much More Powerful Than Ours, For All Her Levers Move The Human Heart.

As Soon As Any Man Says Of The Affairs Of The State "what Does It Matter To Me?" The State May Be Given Up For Lost.

If There Were A People Consisting Of Gods, They Would Be Governed Democratically. So Perfect A Government Is Not Suitable To Men.

The More Humanity Owes Him, The More Society Denies Him. Every Door Is Shut Against Him, Even When He Has A Right To Its Being Opened: And If He Ever Obtains Justice, It Is With Much Greater Difficulty Than Others Obtain Favors.

There Is One Further Distinguishing Characteristic Of Man Which Is Very Specific Indeed And About Which There Can Be No Dispute, And That Is The Faculty Of Self-improvement - A Faculty Which, With The Help Of Circumstance, Progressively Develops All Our Other Faculties.

Ah, That Is A Perfume In Which I Delight; When They Roast Coffee Near My House, I Hasten To Open The Door To Take In All The Aroma.

In Truth, Laws Are Always Useful To Those With Possessions And Harmful To Those Who Have Nothing; From Which It Follows That The Social State Is Advantageous To Men Only When All Possess Something And None Has Too Much.

To Try To Conceal Our Own Heart Is A Bad Means To Read That Of Others.

Take The Course Opposite To Custom And You Will Almost Always Do Well.

It Is Easier To Conquer Than To Administer. With Enough Leverage, A Finger Could Overturn The World; But To Support The World, One Must Have The Shoulders Of Hercules.

Civilization Is A Hopeless Race To Discover Remedies For The Evils It Produces.

I May Be No Better, But At Least I Am Different.

One Must Choose Between Making A Man Or A Citizen, For One Cannot Make Both At The Same Time.

What, Then, Is The Government? An Intermediary Body Established Between The Subjects And The Sovereign For Their Mutual Communication, And Charged With The Execution Of The Laws And The Maintenance Of Freedom, Civil As Well As Political.

The Members Of A Body-politic Call It "the State" When It Is Passive, "the Sovereign" When It Is Active, And A "power" When They Compare It With Others Of Its Kind. Collectively They Use The Title "people," And They Refer To One Another Individually As "citizens" When Speaking Of Their Participation In The Authority Of The Sovereign, And As "subjects" When Speaking Of Their Subordination To The Laws Of The State.

And When The Relics Of Humanity Left Among The Spaniards Induced Them To Forbid Their Lawyers To Set Foot In America, What Must They Have Thought Of Jurisprudence? May It Not Be Said That They Thought, By This Single Expedient, To Make Reparation For All The Outrages They Had Committed Against The Unhappy Indians?

To Study Men, We Must Look Close By; To Study Man, We Must Learn To Look Afar; If We Are To Discover Essential Characteristics, We Must First Observe Differences.

In The Strict Sense Of The Term, A True Democracy Has Never Existed, And Never Will Exist.

Democracies Have

When A Man Dies He Clutches In His Hands Only That Which He Has Given Away During His Lifetime.

The People Is Never Corrupted, But It Is Often Deceived.

Quit Thy Childhood, My Friend, And Wake Up!

Everything Is In Constant Flux On This Earth. Nothing Keeps The Same Unchanging Shape, And Our Affections, Being Attached To Things Outside Us, Necessarily Change And Pass Away As They Do. Always Out Ahead Of Us Or Lagging Behind, They Recall A Past Which Is Gone Or Anticipate A Future Which May Never Come Into Being; There Is Nothing Solid There For The Heart To Attach Itself To. Thus Our Earthly Joys Are Almost Without Exception The Creatures Of A Moment.

Interest Is The Spur Of The People, But Glory That Of Great Souls.

The Truths Of The Scriptures Are So Marked And Inimitable, That The Inventor Would Be More Of A Miraculous Character Than The Hero.

It Is Believed That Physiognomy Is Only A Simple Development Of The Features Already Marked Out By Nature. It Is My Opinion, However, That In Addition To This Development, The Features Come Insensibly To Be Formed And Assume Their Shape From The Frequent And Habitual Expression Of Certain Affections Of The Soul. These Affections Are Marked On The Countenance; Nothing Is More Certain Than This; And When They Turn Into Habits, They Must Leave On It Durable Impressions.

At Sixteen, The Adolescent Knows About Suffering Because He Himself Has Suffered, But He Barely Knows That Other Beings Also Suffer.

He Who Has The Base Necessities Of Life Should Pay Nothing; Taxation On Him Who Has A Surplus May, If Need Be; Extend To Everything Beyond Necessities.

I Have Always Said And Felt That True Enjoyment Can Not Be Described.

War Is Then Not A Relationship Between One Man And Another, But A Relationship Between One State And Another, In Which Individuals Are Enemies Only By Accident, Not As Men, Nor Even As Citizens, But As Soldiers; Not As Members Of The Fatherland, But As Its Defenders. Finally, Any State Can Only Have Other States, And Not Men, As Enemies, Inasmuch As It Is Impossible To Fix A True Relation Between Things Of Different Natures.

Our Will Is Always For Our Own Good, But We Do Not Always See What That Is; The People Is Never Corrupted, But It Is Often Deceived, And On Such Occasions Only Does It Seem To Will What Is Bad.

Supreme Happiness Consists In Self-content.

All Kinds Of Frankness And Honesty Are Terrible Crimes In The Eyes Of Society.

You Forget That The Fruits Belong To All And That The Land Belongs To No One.

A Paralyzed Man Who Wants To Walk Or An Agile Man Who Does Not Want To Walk Will Both Remain Neutral In Nature.

I May Not Amount To Much, But At Least I Am Unique.

The Taste For Splendor Is Hardly Ever Combined In The Same Souls With The Taste For The Honorable.

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